MONTREAL – Quebec filmmaker Xavier Dolan says he didn’t fully appreciate or understand the play his new movie is based on when he read it the first time.
The award-winning director spoke to reporters in Montreal on Tuesday alongside members of the cast of “It’s Only the End of the World,” including Nathalie Baye, Lea Seydoux and Gaspard Ulliel, as well as producer Nancy Grant.
Dolan said it was actress friend Anne Dorval who first introduced him to the play about five or six years ago.
“I read it,” he said. “I didn’t necessarily understand immediately what I was reading. But with time, all of a sudden, I think, I recognized what systematically attracts me to something. It’s the flawed characters and how imperfect and how human they were — it’s what made me want to adapt (the play) into a film.
“There is such texture and depth to these protagonists because they are not perfect, they are not clean, not polite and they are sometimes hysterical and brutal and heavy-handed.”
Filming was “very intense” he said, and took place over a 20-day period. The actors were only all together for six days.
“We filmed the last scene, the implosion scene, on the third and fourth day,” he said. “After the scene, the technicians, the people, me, all burst into tears because it was so emotional, because it was so touching and so very, very intense.”
“It’s Only the End of the World” has already won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Dolan said the film is his best work.
“It’s the movie I’m most proud of,” he said. “I said it earlier this year that it is my best film. When I watch it, it’s the movie that I think is the most complete.”
